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Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

investmentcalculator.io

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Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#141

Post by cure »

From the FAQ:

What is my retirements purchasing power today?

Inflation is inevitable. If that word is new to you, it simply determines how much purchasing power your dollar has. Historically, inflation has always increased with time.

In order to get a good understanding of the purchasing power of your future retirement savings for today, you can do a “simple” calculation: Take your total retirement savings and multiply it by 3%. For example, if you have $1.25m (retirement savings), multiplied by 0.03% (inflation), you get $45,000 in inflation. Then you subtract that number from your total savings: $1.25m - $45k = $880k. This will give you a baseline to understand your financial situation.

I don't even.... What !? There are so many things wrong with that calculation.

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#142

Post by beefman »

jogjayr wrote: post #114
beefman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoothly decreasing every month for the entire savings period. Maybe it isn't popular because income tends to increase over the course of a career?

It doesn't make much sense to do logically because you can front-load a lot less at the beginning of your career. It's far better to design a sustainable lifestyle you like when starting out and aggressively fight scaling it up with your income. If you do that the numbers will work themselves out.

On the other hand, rising disposable income is supposed to be a good thing (annuities for lottery winners etc). Cost of living tends to rise with age, too (kids, healthcare...).

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#143

Post by peterangular »

AustinGrandt wrote: post #134
peterangular wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Crazy how close it is to my implementation - https://modelinvesting.com/retirement-calculator/ You have a UI bug on your tooltips on advanced fields. They show up way above where they should be =)

Awesome tool! I honestly feel like the more of these there are in the world, the better. So many opportunities to help people learn more about investing, saving, etc. I know that's a bug I need to fix, something with bootstrap. Thanks for pointing it out and hopefully will have a fix tonight!

Thank you! I have a ton of fun doing the development for that site, calculators and all. Definitely one of my flagship products over the years, great client -> great product =)

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#144

Post by yellowstuff »

cecilpl2 wrote: post #117
ryandrake wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yowzers! Please tell me what this magical investment is where I can expect an average rate of return of 9% (let alone 12%). That is off the charts optimistic.

Assuming dividend reinvestment, the S&P 500 has returned an annual average of 10% nominally (7% real), over the last 100 years or so.

The S&P 500 is the best reference index for US equities, but I'd be wary about using its history as a base case for retirement planning. The 60 years that its existed in its present form have seen the US economy grow consistently in a way that's almost unrivaled in human history. There are lots of good arguments for why the US will not grow as fast over the next 60 years, but for me the best one is just regression to the mean. Probably the US economy will grow at a rate closer to the lower rates common in our countries throughout human history, and over a long time frame the S&P 500 cannot grow much faster than the really economy.

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#145

Post by Veelox »

cryoshon wrote: post #135
Veelox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you start at 25, saving 10% of your salary into a 401k and never get divorced, spend > If successfully saving for retirement was so straightforward and deterministic, there wouldn’t be an entire industry, with consultants and books, built up around trying to help people hopelessly navigate it. There is a full industry. Saving money (for people with incomes above the median), like losing weight is simple. Yet there…

>saving 10% of your salary impossible for most people >spend impossible for many (most?) places with jobs >don't borrow to spend more than you make 90% of the time this factor is indeed entirely up to individuals and a perpetual point of failure... but refusing to borrow and cutting minor expenses is not a road to any kind of wealth for most people. it's a road to retiring poor. most people are on that road.

> >saving 10% of your salary

>impossible for most people

Part of me is tempted to look up statistics to make the point but if you are making more than 150% of the poverty line in the US, you can save 10% of your income, it is a choice not to.

> >spend >impossible for many (most?) places with jobs

It all depends on where you are willing to live. Also, if you move to somewhere to get a job, before you accept the offer you should check to see if it is possible to move there and follow this guideline. If you, you shouldn't move there because you will become worse off.

> refusing to borrow and cutting minor expenses is not a road to any kind of wealth for most people. it's a road to retiring poor. most people are on that road.

Depends on what you count as minor expenses. If I cut out $100 a month of expenses starting at age 25, and put that in an index fund that grows at 8% until I retire at 67 it will be worth $412,077.88. If I want to retire a millionaire I need to save just under $250/month, which is 10% of a 30k a year job. At $30k I am a little sympathetic if you cannot save $250/month. If you are making $50k, it is a matter of choice.

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#146

Post by codingdave »

One nuance that is sorely needed is to change your risk profile as you age. Aggressive investment when you are 30 makes sense. Not when you are 60. The decision of when to start moving to more conservative portfolios is a personal choice... but you certainly don't stay in one bucket throughout your entire life.

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#147

Post by peterangular »

asaph wrote: post #137
peterangular wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Crazy how close it is to my implementation - https://modelinvesting.com/retirement-calculator/ You have a UI bug on your tooltips on advanced fields. They show up way above where they should be =)

Hey Folkhack. Nice to see you on this thread. I posted a link to my retirement calculator here too. It was always fun discussing design with you.

Eyyy asaph - was good to see you in here too! Always down to chat design. Stop by again if you're ever in the neighborhood!

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#148

Post by andrewmcwatters »

what's pisses me off about these calculators is they completely ignore deduction limits[-1] and considering the audience here, there's plenty of people who do not benefit at all from contributing to an ira, or even a 401(k) if you plan on retiring earlier than 65

in fact, it's detrimental, compared to the fund flexibility of a standard brokerage

i wish people would talk about this more; perhaps there's something i'm missing, but after a certain income threshold, iras and 401(k)s seem like foolish investment decisions

[-1] https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employ...

Re: Show HN: Investment Calculator – A simple retirement calculator

#149

Post by jogjayr »

beefman wrote: post #142
jogjayr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make much sense to do logically because you can front-load a lot less at the beginning of your career. It's far better to design a sustainable lifestyle you like when starting out and aggressively fight scaling it up with your income. If you do that the numbers will work themselves out.

On the other hand, rising disposable income is supposed to be a good thing (annuities for lottery winners etc). Cost of living tends to rise with age, too (kids, healthcare...).

> rising disposable income is supposed to be a good thing

That's the lifestyle inflation I'm alluding to. If one can be happy spending X/year 5 years ago, why can't one be happy spending inflation-adjusted X/year today?

Agree about kids and healthcare but those aren't "lifestyle" costs.

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